A 2013 report by the British Geological Survey (BGS) estimated that the largest area, Bowland-Hodder, could contain as much as 65 trillion cubic meters (tcm).
manufacture
a more Recent BGS Analysis Modify the numbers down to 5 cm. This daily mailforecasts are based on one of four scenarios listed in the publication State Grid; it casually omits to mention the other three – all assuming that by mid-century, fracking would provide less than one-tenth the gas consumption of the UK.
Regardless of the amount of fossil natural gas, its profitable extraction requires political action.
Fracking companies are lobbying the Trus government to cut and repeal regulations on planning, earthquakes — particularly the requirement to suspend operations when an earthquake above 0.5 on the Richter scale is triggered — and regulations that require local communities to agree.the latter, according to a consultation“equivalent to suspending delivery.”
We can expect to see a bonfire of regulations as the fracking hall is opening its doors in Whitehall. Truss’s cabinet is based on the Conservative Party’s “drilling baby gym” faction.
Its strategy is to create a “Ukrainian war moment” to advance the fossil fuel agenda and remove environmental regulations.
solar
Cabinet members include Ranil Jayawardena as Environment Minister, consistently Vote against measures to tackle climate collapse, against government support for renewable energy projects, and as Home Secretary Sulla (“Crula”) Braverman called for a moratorium on the UK’s net-zero emissions target.
Crucially, the business and energy mix was handed over to Jacob Rees-Mogg, climate daniel and investors in the fossil fuel industry, who support keep burning coal and desire to destroy”The obsession of environmentalists. “
He is most like the actor who looks like a boa constrictor High Society Wise of the Year race, and driven by a suicidal stupidity that might even surpass them, as seen in his desire to squeeze”gas per last cubic inch“From below the North Sea. Viewing shale gas through Rees-Mogg’s monocle is”very clean. “
The new prime minister, Liz Truss, was herself a former Shell business manager, and her Conservative leadership campaign was partly funded by political sponsorship program Another UK-based oil major, BP.
When the environment minister was in 2014-16, she cut subsidies for solar farms, calling them Fusarium wilt on the landscapeShe has pledged to remove so-called “green levies” from energy bills and has hired an aide who previously worked at the U.S. Cato Institute.
accelerate
Four years ago, during her trip to the United States, the chief secretary to the U.S. Treasury Department revealed the investigative journalism website go hazeTruss met with a series of Koch-funded think tanks and lobby groups with a history of climate science denial, including the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.
For UK fracking, the US is a beacon, both in terms of the profitability of its shale gas industry and in a Trump model that flatly rejects the obvious.
Jim Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest men and owner of the country’s largest privately held chemical giant, INEOS, In defense of hydraulic fracturing By pointing to “America,” they “drilled a million wells, and they were so successful that they didn’t contaminate anything.” His spokesman promise INEOS will conduct fracking “safely and without harm to the environment”.
In fact, hydraulic fracturing absolutely destroys the environment, not only through vehicular traffic at drilling sites, water pollution and so on, but globally via CO2 Emissions from combustion and the direct escape of methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas.
Only Permian wells in Texas and New Mexico reportedly leaked methane new scientistwhich would accelerate global heating “almost as much carbon dioxide is emitted every year by nearly all U.S. households.”
invest
The gas giant’s PR department came up with the idea, and it was imitated by Truss and Joe Biden, that methane is a “transition” or “bridge” fuels — stepping stones from the carbon black past to a green energy future — are laughable.
The “bridge fuel” myth has a political purpose beyond simply cleaning up greenhouse gases. The fracking faction who set the tone for Truss cabinet must work with contradictory or skeptical colleagues, such as Prime Minister Kwasi Kwarteng and junior minister in charge of climate change, Graham Stewart.
They must try to convince a skeptical public, half of whom against hydraulic fracturing, against a quarter in favor. Describing shale gas as “clean” is important for bridging these divides and is ideologically central to its broader cause.
The political centerpiece will be bribing residents of fracking areas with the aim of turning them against their anti-fracking neighbors.
Ineos’ director’s words are ambiguous promise “Invest the first 6% of gas value back into local communities.”
solidarity
return under discussion It is a proposal to provide residents living near fracking sites with a 25% subsidy on their energy bills for an undisclosed amount of time. Tina Rothery says hanging on to that carrot in a rundown town like Blackpool when energy bills can’t afford it. Frack Free Nanas, A cynical move.
How will the anti-fracking campaign respond? Tina told me that Lancashire activists are preparing ”go all out” and “Go straight to work again.
“We are rebuilding our network now, and this week we will be gathering at the gates. We will use all the tools at our disposal – protest camps, lockdowns, demonstrations and legal action – to stop them from moving forward. We’ll set up camps again; We will be everywhere.
She went on to say that the advantage we have is that instead of building a movement from scratch, we’re reverting to an earlier successful movement.
“We were very large in the mid-2010s, around 400 teams. We protested in the camp for 1,000 days until fracking was banned, and our direct action was the inspiration behind Extinction Rebellion. We got friends from abroad. Help, especially friends in America – we learn from each other and we’re going to need that unity again.”
Idol
Another difference between today and when the original campaign began in 2011), involving the PCS union’s Clara Paillard and Frack Free Lancashirethat “now the biggest union, UNITE, has an anti-fracking policy.
“Additionally, there are many new social movements dealing with environmental issues such as Extinction Rebellion, Youth Climate Strikes and Stopping Oil, as well as energy cost crises such as ‘enough is enough’ and ‘don’t pay’.
In addition, this summer saw The resurgence of labor activism“Therefore, it is possible to bring together community groups, climate groups, unions and others. Anti-fracking groups can play a key role in this, as we include not only direct actors who may be arrested, but also local Residents and community groups.”
However, she warned, “A bigger threat than fracking is North Sea oil and gas drilling. Reverse fracking must be part of a larger movement, not a distraction.”
Tina and Clara and the fracktivists believe they will win. The new prime minister adores Margaret Thatcher, but her party is already fractured and her government will be in trouble.
skirmish
During a decade of semi-successful GDP growth, Mrs Thatcher vigorously pursued reforms that could draw strength from alignment with the emerging system of global accumulation.
Her party is united on a neoliberal agenda, including energy privatization, which Opposition parties later joined. In contrast, there was no new growth model during Truss’s tenure as prime minister.
Brexit is a lame duck, not a golden goose. An unpopular leader, she garnered less than a third of the party’s MPs and less than half of the membership in a two-horse race.
In fracking, she will find some support among Tory MPs and voters, but complain and complain also. Tear up planning regulations is unpopular among NIMBY persuasion Britons.
If we do win the fracking war, it will be a skirmish in a war that will decide the planet. Oil and gas companies are pouring huge sums of money into exploration and expansion.
Renewable Energy
U.S. government, from Summer 2021 And as the war in Ukraine has accelerated, there has been a U-turn in the auction of oil leases on public lands.
As if for environmentalists, the Biden-Manchin climate bill opened fire for new drilling and fracking circuits. These policy shifts lend legitimacy to the global expansion of fossil fuels, given Washington’s hegemony and London’s role as the current chair of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP).
U-turns in fracking in London and Washington show that the idea that the long arc of capital is bending toward sustainability is an illusion. But economic trends won’t save the planet.
When oil and gas prices plummeted in 2015, some hoped the fracking industry would settle. When they bounce back in 2021, the new belief is that this will accelerate the energy transition as renewables become (relatively) cheaper every day.
However, capital does not follow this logic.If It Smells Enough Profit, Charterists Thomas Dunning Capital, wrote in 1860, was “very bold.”
catastrophic
10% will secure its employment; 20% will create desire; 50% will be aggressive and bold; 100% will make it ready to trample all human laws; risk.”
If “turmoil and strife” and even enslavement of humanity will make the checkout ring ring, capital will “freely encourage” it all, he wrote.
New investments in oil and gas will even hit ‘net zero’ targets – let alone absolute zero– more difficult to achieve.
The current frenzy over drilling and fracking is anchoring a lot of new capital: 10 or 20 years in wells that will produce shale gas, and LNG terminals that take decades to pay off investors.
Their owners will go to great lengths to defend their assets.As the recession squeezes global demand over the next year or two, and later as new production comes on stream, gas and oil will become affordable againbut only until the next price surge, the cycle continues.
Meanwhile, some of the trillions of dollars pouring into the coffers of the oil industry will be earmarked for waging an ideological war against environmentalism because buy politicians and wavering policies, and will therefore ensure that our current catastrophic trajectory continues unless and until an insurgency breaks out to stop it.
this author
Gareth Dyer Taught Political Science at Brunel University, many of his articles appear in its website. he tweeted @Gareth_Dale. This article was first published in The truth is revealed.
